Pattern In The Tradeoff Between Civil Liberties And National Security During National Emergencies In The United States

The tradeoff between civil liberties and national security has been a hot debatesince the founding of the civil-liberties-cherishing United States, especially duringwartime or national crisis. Those led by the executive administration claim thatnational security is more important than civil liberties while those mainly made up oflibertarians argue that the latter is supreme in America. How this relationship is dealtwith has a direct impact on American domestic and foreign policies-making. Thus, adiscussion and analysis of that relationship can provide us with an importantperspective to understand and observe American domestic and foreign policies. Theactions taken by the American government after9/11to protect national security atthe cost of civil liberties make the relationship a hot debate again. American scholarsmainly discuss and analyze the major incidents in American history when civilliberties were violated to protect national security and what impacts those violationshad on domestic politics and civil life from historical and constitutional perspectivesand come to two conclusions:1) civil liberties once violated will never be back; and2) a balance shall be struck between the two. They fail to review and analyze whathappened to those violated civil liberties afterwards. A few scholars explore thefactors affecting people’s choice between the two but neglect the other three majordeterminants in that tradeoff—the executive, the legislative and the judiciary.Based on a historical review of how the balance between civil liberties andnational security had been disrupted and restored during wartime and an analysis ofthe situation in post-9/11America from the aspects of the four major determinants inthe tradeoff—the executive, the legislative, the judiciary and public opinion, thispaper identifies a pattern in the tradeoff during national emergencies, i.e. civilliberties are curtailed in the name of protecting national security at the outset of anational emergency but those curtailed resurge as the emergency fades, and attemptsto prove this pattern by analyzing the responses from the four major players.